Gartner Says Consumer-Facing Industries Will Drive IT Investment in Australia During the Next Five Y

Australian enterprise IT spending is forecast to total A$73 billion in 2013, nearly a five percent increase of projected 2012 spending of A$69 billion, according to Gartner’s latest forecast for enterprise IT spending by vertical market.

According to Gartner’s recent annual end user survey of enterprise IT budgets, the outlook remains steady; half of Australian respondent organizations expect IT budgets to remain flat in 2013, and 38 percent expect them to increase.

Virtualization is one of the top three IT priority projects for 29 percent of Australian organizations – closely followed by deployment of mobile technologies (24 percent). “We strongly expect that mobile will take over to become the highest rated priority IT investment area in 2013,” said Derry Finkeldey, research agenda manager at Gartner. “Even amongst those organizations planning to tighten IT budgets, or keep them stable, there are plans to invest in mobility.”

While the natural resources sector has been through a period of robust investment, it is the consumer-facing industries that will continue to drive IT investment and innovation over the next five years. The communications, media and services sector will lead the vertical markets with total spending expected to reach $14.6 billion in 2013, up 5.1 percent from $13.9 billion in 2012. The banking and securities sector will have the strongest growth in 2013 and is expected to reach $12.8 billion in 2013, up 5.5 percent from $12.1 billion in 2012. Investment in front office technologies to drive customer engagement are at the fore.

“Australians are savvy and demanding technology customers, and organizations operating in this market need to meet expectations for increasingly contextualized and ‘on-demand’ services,” added Ms. Finkeldey.

In 2012, government IT spending is forecast to grow just under three percent to achieve a total of A$10.1 billion, up from $9.7 billion in 2012. “Many Australian government departments have achieved efficiencies following the Gershon review, and are now looking to invest back in technologies to improve services to citizens, recognizing that new technology investments may help reduce the cost of service delivery, improve operational efficiency or reduce future expenditure,” said Ms. Finkeldey.

Additional information is available in the report “Forecast Analysis: Enterprise IT Spending by Vertical Industry Market, Worldwide, 2010-2016, 3Q12 Update.” The report is available on Gartner’s website at http://www.gartner.com/resId=2230115.

About Gartner:
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